Wanted to share something I have come to a deeper understanding of.Over the past couple of months I’ve had a couple thousand interactions with people who have left the church, don’t want to come back, but are beginning to reengage with god and the Bible. They always lead with some version of “hey, I am never going back to church because X” or “X happened to me so I’m obviously not interested in church” and then they ask a question about God and/or the Bible. After all of these interactions I have discovered the one thing they need from me as a pastor in my response: empathy. If I lead with “I’m so sorry that happened to you” or “that is wrong and horrible, I’m so sorry…” we have an ongoing conversation. If I act like it didn’t matter or go right to answering their question, it’s a single interaction. And when they just come at me with the pain and no question, when I respond with empathy, we have great conversation. It’s part of the open arms to the world that we talk about in Embrace. Hope this is interesting and helpful to you!

Posted by unpretending at 2024-05-24 20:55:20 UTC